Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Funny, I just mentioned the fact that Yahoo is always playing catch-up. I wonder if they are reading my blog?

Well, anyway (no I don't think they are reading my blog, is anybody?) you certainly can't catch up with infinity, but I think Microsoft has claimed unlimited storage for Hotmail for a while now. As many posters to the above articles point out, unlimited storage isn't a big issue right now. They are all playing a numbers game, balancing storage limits (or lack thereof) with expiration times for unused accounts, people need to organize (delete junk mail) for their own sanity, and the always present provision to "impose limits on users who abuse the system". So, if I am a compulsive type of person who never deletes any email, be it junk or otherwise, is it an abuse to load all of my archives into Yahoo mail? Since usability of the Yahoo web interface is at an all time low, it's tempting to use it strictly as an archive. On the other hand forgetting to log in (and apparently from the comments, logging into Yahoo isn't enough, you have to specifically visit your inbox) for four months will result in it all being deleted. Now Yahoo needs to catch up on Gmail with its expiration period of 9 months, and it's snappy, uncluttered interface. It needs to catch up with Gmail and AIM mail in allowing POP or IMAP support at the free level. It need to drastically improve its spam filtering, which is all but non functional now. Giving away domain names for e-mail as AOL is now doing isn't a bad touch either. Do all, or most of these things Yahoo, then I MIGHT be tempted to switch from Gmail (or AIM mail, my second choice). Oh, and Yahoo's web interface crashes and locks up for me frequently, in addition to, from time to time, telling me my browser is incompatible, while other times acting as though it is. That's a bit of a show-stopper for something with ONLY a web interface.